Arguments Made in Favor of Universal Basic Income at the World Economic Forum

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In Brief

Professor Pissarides, Nobel Laureate economist, argued for universal basic income at the WEF last month.

Sir Christopher Pissarides is a Nobel prize-winning economist and the Regius professor at the London School of Economics. Recently, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he expressed his support for a universal basic income (UBI) at one of the debate sessions last January 20th 2016.

Professor Pissarides stated:

“The pie is growing bigger, there is no guarantee that everyone will benefit if we leave the market alone. In fact, if anything, we think that not everyone will benefit if we leave the market alone. So we need to develop a new system of redistributions, new policies that will redistribute inevitably from those that the market would have rewarded in favor of those that the market would have left behind. Now, having a universal minimum income is one of those ways, in fact, it is one I am very much in favor of, as long as we know how to apply it without taking away incentive to work at the lower end of the market.”

An interesting point discussed was the idea that a lot of human tasks will soon be automated, so we can now focus on development of other tasks. Humans can also work just because we enjoy it, and not because we need to earn a specific amount of income to survive.